C.C. COURTNEY FUN FACTS & TRIVIA:

THEIR SINGING BODIES - C.C. and Lou Kirby recorded Buddy Holly's "Maybe Baby" in 1965. It was played on WNOE and WTIX, plus all over the 'NOE listening area (WNOE was a 50,000 watt radio blowtorch) and in Houston and other places. C.C. and Lou appeared and performed it at the 1965 WNOE All-Star show at Municipal Auditorium. They performed in black tights with a sash around the waist, and no shirts...they were painted in shiny metallic gold (and not very healthy) paint from waist to the top of their heads. Cherie (Vitrano Smith) played the Singing Bodies on the radio into the late '90's.

HUBBA HUBBA - Reliable rumor has it that it was indeed C.C.'s DJ buddy Lou Kirby who swiped the "Hubba Hubba" sign off the Mississippi River Bridge. Like Mayor Schiro said, "Don't believe any false rumors unless you hear them from me."

SALVATION - After his move from New Orleans to New York, C.C. was the co-author (along with Peter Link) of the 1969 Broadway play "Salvation." He also co-wrote the music. One song "(If You Let Me Make Love To You) Why Can't I Touch You" sung by Ronnie Dyson hit the pop charts and went to #2.

EARL OF RUSTON - The second play C.C. wrote. It was about Earl D. Woods, the "town crazy" of Ruston, LA.

RUSTON,  LA - C.C. was born in Ruston, but considers New Orleans his home. He spent very little of his youth in Ruston. Actually he lived more in New Orleans, as his parents divorced leaving C.C. and his brother to live here and there, a bit of which was in N.O.

MURPHY'S CANYON - C.C.'s familiar signoff on WNOE "Remember, nobody lives in Murphy's Canyon but my brother" was C.C.'s twist on a standard and nonsensical signoff on many stations at that time. The saying had been "Hardly anybody lives in Murphy's Canyon," and it was first used on WNOE by Long John Silver in 1962. C. C.'s brother, who was also a jock in another city, had also used it. When his brother got killed in 1964, C. C. changed it to "Nobody Lives In Murphy's Canyon but my brother." Then C.C. added "Mele Kalikimaka" to it. That's Hawaiian for "Merry Christmas," not his brother's name. So the official C.C. Courtney signoff was "Remember, nobody lives in Murphy's Canyon but my brother...Mele Kalikimaka."

C.C.'s REAL BROTHER - From C.C.:

"On August 24, 1964

William Kennth Courtney of Ruston, Louisiana

Was buried.

And so was I."

MURPHY'S CANYON ON THE STAGE - The first play C. C. wrote that was produced off-Broadway in New York was called Murphy's Canyon.

PRETTY BABY - Rent the movie "Pretty Baby" sometime. It was 12-year-old Brooke Shields' first movie. A tale about Storyville and filmed in the French Quarter in the late '70's, you'll catch C.C. decked out as a Naval officer in the parlor of one of the "houses." As Brooke Shields passes by, C.C. says "Well, what have we here?"

THE DOCTORS - C.C. was a "recurring character" and he got more scenes the longer he appeared on "The Doctors," a popular soap opera on NBC-TV in the early '70's.

JODY LEE BRONSON - C.C.'s character on "The Doctors." According to C.C.: "It was an extremely popular character, I think because it was humorous. Not much humor on soaps."

NYPD - C.C. was a special guest star on NYPD, and he also played incidental parts on all the shows shooting in NYC.

KAHLIL GIBRAN - C.C. would close his show on Saturday nights by reading a passage from "On Love" from the book "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran, to set the mood for those couples listening and parked somewhere under the moon. After reading it he would close by playing "Lovers Never Say Goodbye" by the Flamingos.

THE KISSING TONE - Earlier, C.C. would end his Saturday night show with more direct help for parked lovers listening. He played the recorded Kissing Tone setup: "It's time for the C.C. Courtney Kissing Tone. In the interest of germ warfare and the furtherance of the medical profession, WNOE now presents the kissing tone," followed by about 15 seconds of exaggerated kissing sound effects. Then C.C. would play "Lovers Never Say Goodbye."

HOW'S YOUR BODY? - C.C. and Lou's way of asking "How are you?"

MY MAIN MAN - How C.C. and Lou addressed each other on the air.

THE SEVEN SEAS - A favorite C.C. watering hole in the Quarter.

WHERE IS LOU KIRBY? - Lou now owns and operates a construction company in Cancun!​

IN MEMORY OF STEVE CASEY - Passed away in August, 2002. Afternoon Drive DJ on WNOE and C.C.'s good friend during C.C.'s return to New Orleans and 'NOE with Buzz Bennett in the late '70's.

Email from C.C. Courtney to Bob Walker on August 12, 2002:

Hey Bob!

Man, what a surprise. A friend called me to come look at the computer. (She's always looking up stuff about me on there for the fun of it.) There was your site and you were talking to Ann in Texas telling her that maybe I would write. Well, here I am. And there you are.

What are you up to these days? Besides running a cool website.

Well, there was some fact and some fiction in your rumors about my existence since I first left N.O. I came to New York to become an actor and, thankfully, was quite successful. I did The Doctors, the number two soap opera at the time for a while. I did most of the major TV shows shooting in NYC, like NYPD, and a couple of movies. I also did Broadway and Off-Broadway stage acting.

But it was writing that got to me. I wrote plays for Broadway and Off-Broadway with some success. Then I realized---here I was writing, telling people how to live their lives, while there was so much I did not know. So I left New York and moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where I got married and had two kids, a boy and a girl. And beleve me I learned a lot.

There was one period in there when Buzz Bennett called me and begged me to come to N.O. and help him win the radio ratings. I was so glad to get back to N.O. that I jumped at the chance. But as you said, that was an unfortunate experience. AM radio was giving way to FM and the WNOE AM tower was falling down and had a very weak signal. We still won the ratings a couple of times before it all fell apart.

Then I ended up with my kids by myself. I went back to my place in Virginia. And then I learned even more. When they got up in age, I moved to Richmond where they could get a good education and learn something about city life. Meanwhile, I went back to college and got a Masters degree.

Then I went with a gentleman from the Royal Shakespeare Company in London and helped him establish a theatre company in Louisiana. Swine Palace it's called. For that I got another Masters degree.

Then I moved to Costa Rica. I was actually interested in Cuba, thinking that when relations were finally returned to normal somebody was going to make a lot of money.

While I was there the acting school I had attended in New York got in contact with me and asked me if I would come teaching acting up there. The Neighborhood Playhouse is the best in the country, producing such stars as Joanne Woodward, Steve McQueen, and Robert Duvall among the hundreds of older ones, and Allison Janney from West Wing and Mary Steenburgen and Dylan McDermott from the Practice and hundreds of others from today's actors. Pretty good for a school that only graduates 25 per year.

Well, to make a long story almost short, I came up here to teach. I didn't think I would particularly like it, but like N.O. I love NYC. But I can tell you I love it. I love teaching acting. I feel that, except for my children, it is the most important thing I have ever done in my life. At last all the dropping careers and moving around are over.

You know, N.O. in the 60s has meant so much to me. I learned so much about life and a ton about show business. Years later when I was doing well as an actor, had an extremely popular soap character and caused the Illinois State Fair to come to a screeching halt when another soap actor and I went out to make an appearance there, it didn't mean that much to me. I had had better experiences in N.O.

When my picture was on the covers of 16 and Teen and other teen magazines, it wasn't as important to me as having my picture in high school newspapers in N.O. I guess the time in N.O. helped me face success in New York with a sense of humility and realize that that was not what I wanted. It had been more fun in N.O. when it was more personal. And I was doing no good for anybody or the world as an actor whereas in N.O. we were doing some good for the world in the 60s. The world was changing big time and we were playing the soundtrack. And we could choose it in those days, it wasn't chosen for the jocks like it is now. I loved it.

Congrats on your mag. I published one too for a couple of years. You remember it---FRED. I learned a lot there too.

Acting training is a life changing experience. I take in 25 students in September and turn out 25 or so totally different people in May. There are three first year classes at The Neighborhood Playhouse. So out of the 75 first year students only 25 or so are invited back for the second year. The students have to take speech, dance, singing and stage combat as well as acting. It is the oldest acting school in the U.S. And I love it.

Again, thanks for your kindness. 

CC